


Boy 412 - small - weak at heart

by Ingi



Category: Septimus Heap - Angie Sage
Genre: Character Study, Childhood Memories, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Late Night Conversations, Light Angst, Minor Violence, Septimus Heap Has PTSD, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-08 12:40:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15243594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ingi/pseuds/Ingi
Summary: Septimus Heap does not think of himself as:Septimus Heap.





	Boy 412 - small - weak at heart

**Author's Note:**

> I re-read the first book of Septimus Heap at some point, because of childhood nostalgia I suppose, and now I've found this in my drafts. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Septimus Heap thinks of himself as:

  1. A wizard.
  2. An ex-soldier of the Young Army.
  3. Sarah and Silas' son, Jenna and Nicko's brother.



 

Septimus Heap does not think of himself as:

  1. Septimus Heap.



 

The voice in his head—the one that has been there since he was born, helping him stay alive—sounds like Boy 412. It thinks of itself as Boy 412, too, and it calls Septimus by his name, but always after a pause, so brief that Septimus might miss it—wish he could miss it—, a pause that says that it does not quite believe it.

 _Seventh son of a seventh son_ , the Dragon whispers, sometimes, often through Jenna. _Little lord_.

 _Expendable_ , one of the many voices of the Young Army says right into Septimus' head. _Boy 412_. _Small_. _Weak at heart_.

Septimus remembers the reports of his superiors, he remembers them just fine. And late night conversations, back in the beginning, when they didn't bother going to sleep only to be waken a couple of hours later—or in the middle of the night, if they were specially unlucky, with yet another test—, Boy 440 and Boy 400 muttering behind their hands, trying to muffle the sound.

He'd like to tell Simon, because he suspects that, somehow, he would understand. Perhaps he's just old enough. Perhaps they're more similar than Simon would like. Perhaps Simon has grown bitter and that has made his eyes clearer.

But Simon keeps looking at him with the kind of distrust that Septimus recognizes—still craddles close to his chest without quite meaning to—, only without the fear.

So Septimus doesn't tell him anything.

He goes to Jenna, one night, and whispers it loud enough that every other person in the room could hear, if they really wanted to. It feels unsafe. But Septimus is trying to fit in his own skin, mold it into something else, something that won't crawl at any hint of danger—especially the ridiculous ones, the ones that shouldn't scare him at all, the ones that don't scare anyone else—.

They gave him a name, but the skin, the skin still belongs to Boy 412— and so does the mind, really, and in the end, Septimus isn't quite sure that he is anything but a name, but he supposes that it's still better than not being anything at all.

"Boy 440, he thought he was a wizard," he tells Jenna, and Jenna scrunches up her nose and doesn't understand, but it's alright, because Septimus wasn't expecting her to. "He'd sit for hours, if there was nothing better to do- or even if there was, and he'd stare at a rock and try to make it glow. His mother taught him a spell, see, before he was taken, and he said she'd made his own fingers into an amulet, somehow, so he'd always be able to recite it."

"I don't think that's possible," Jenna says.

"It's not." They had all learned it, while studying the enemy. "Boy 400 would tell him that, but Boy 440 wouldn't hear of it. He kept staring at rocks, and that was fine, but then a guard saw- one of the older ones, he'd done the recruiting for some time, and he remembered Boy 440. Or maybe not, but he said- he said, if you're a wizard, boy, then I'm a cabbage. He said he remembered his mother, how she clinged to his fingers when he was taken, and he- the guard, he said, stupid boy, that was not a spell, she was telling you to be safe, does it look like that worked."

Septimus thinks of Boy 440's face, frozen and pale for a long moment, right before he started sobbing desperately. The guard had hit him in the back of the head to make him stop, but it hadn't worked. It hadn't worked at all.

"But was he a wizard?" Jenna asks, thoughtfully. "The boy, I mean. Was he?"

Boy 440 had been hit by a bullet during a drill. He'd bled to death, held by Boy 400, who kept screaming _you did it on purpose, you did it_. Septimus had stayed in the shadows and stared at the bloodied ground.

"It doesn't matter," he replies.

It's the same thing he'd told Boy 400, when he'd asked him to help him recover the bullet—to check if it had been silver.

(Then, during the night, Boy 412 sneaked back outside and dug into the shallow ground, picked the bullet up and into the moonlight.

He buried it again, minutes later, and _criedcriedcried_ into the grave.)

Jenna wants to hear more about Boy 440 and Boy 400, but her face is open and curious, and Septimus knows that it would be too cruel. It would be too cruel. She goes to sleep disappointed—in him, and he wants to tell her, _it's not the first time_ , but he doesn't, of course he doesn't—, and Septimus stares at the ceiling for far too long, willing his mind to be blank.

He's trying not to make a good-bad list in his head.

Boy 412 starts one anyway, imaginary quill shaking in the moonlight.

But beside point number one— _You've been given a name_ —, for the first time ever, he writes a question mark.

 

 

 


End file.
